Fantagraphics has officially announced the new Stephen Dixon story collection, What Is All This?, due out in May 2010.

Click through for a shot of the (previously mentioned) cover (which I really like). Here's a quote for you:

Fantagraphics Books is proud to present his latest volume of short stories, a massive collection of vintage Dixon, eschewing the modernism and quasi-autobiography of his I-trilogy and instead treating readers to a pared-down, crystalline style more reminiscent of Hemingway....

"This is our third book of prose fiction -after Alex Theroux's Laura Warholic and Monte Schulz's This Side of Jordan- and readers may notice that the common denominator among these books is that language itself serves as the animating literary force," says acquiring editor and Fantagraphics co-publisher Gary Groth. "Dixon's finely chiseled sentences cut to the quick of people's lives. None of these stories have been collected in any book; they have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals over almost 40 years and Dixon has entirely rewritten all of them. Dixon admirers will be cheered to learn that these stories comprise a wholly original work."

Oh, yeah, and it's about 900 pages long. Nice.

In the comments of this post over at the Fantagraphics blog, there is a little bit of information about that Stephen Dixon book they're putting out next year: it's a 900 page collection of uncollected short stories called What Is All This?, cover design forthcoming from Jacob Covey.

Kids, the stuff Stephen Dixon hasn't collected is more than the stuff you'll ever produce ever in a million years. Even counting your Twitter stuff. We can just go ahead and shut down the Internet now.

Syndication? Re-runs? What is this, Family Ties? Not so awesome, but close: my Identity Theory review of Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City hit Powell's Review-a-Day over the weekend. So, now, you know, if you missed it the first time, here's your chance to take home a little bit of dislike of your own.

Cormac McCarthy talks to the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ: When you first went to the film set, how did it compare with how you saw "The Road" in your head?

CM: I guess my notion of what was going on in "The Road" did not include 60 to 80 people and a bunch of cameras. [Director] Dick Pearce and I made a film in North Carolina about 30 years ago and I thought, "This is just hell. Who would do this?" Instead, I get up and have a cup of coffee and wander around and read a little bit, sit down and type a few words and look out the window.

WSJ: But is there something compelling about the collaborative process compared to the solitary job of writing?

CM: Yes, it would compel you to avoid it at all costs.

More like Cormac McCarthZING!

(More here.)

Infection

There are points, scattered throughout Inherent Vice, when you realize that, yes, of course, Thomas Pynchon had to write a mystery novel, a-doy. Because, you know, paranoia? and like, connections? Dig?